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Reading list, 25 March 2018

Courtney Johnston does what she does so well in a talk On Safe Spaces at the Public Galleries Summit in Sydney, organising and sharing her thoughts on a complex topic in galleries around contested interpretation of contemporary and historic art works. Institutions can no longer rely on audiences to accept the classical cannon without question, nor can they commission new works without considering the communities and histories in which they sit.

Museums are increasingly confronting and being confronted by questions of colonisation. Here’s a fascinating case study, The museum will not be decolonised, from Birmingham from people confronting the museum in a city that wouldn’t exist without its colonial foundation.

Here in New Zealand, the Alexander Turnbull Library is looking ahead to it’s centennary: 2018 is 100 years since Turnbull gifted his collection to the nation; 2020 will mark 100 years since the library opened. What are the sorts of questions we should be asking at this point as we look back on the contribution the collection has made to scholarship and research in New Zealand, while remembering that Turnbull was, like many (or nearly all), a white man of means?

Pia Waugh and the Service Innovation Lab continue to break down barriers and work with people beyond our usual structures. LabPlus: Discovery with the Citizens Advice Bureau gives a great run-down of a project with Citizens Advice, noting the difficulty for government to reach some audiences and the importance of serving intermediaries like Citizens Advice.

And finally the Canadians continue with some great work on developing policies for digital government with this on how to assess the impact of algorithms in decision making: A Canadian Algorithmic Impact Assessment.